Mean Machine
by HiDiNgFrOmYoU
Summary: Jeff gets locked out of his room after searching for sugar in the middle of the night. This is set just after the 2002 Ladder match between The American Badass and some crazy kid from North Carolina ; Lets see what happens?


AN: So I was awake at WAY to fricking early/late this morning and had just finished watching Wrestlemania 23, needless to say I finally relased my muse for Wrestling. This is my frist ever story in this fandom.

This was inspired by the 2002 Ladder match between the two. Taker raised Jeff's hand afterwards and it made me think...

Warnings: Cursing and innuendo that's it

**Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. All characters, names, images, ect are copyright of the WWE and / or their respective owners. I only own the plot and I am conciously aware that this plot is only a ficitious thing made up by my sleep-deprived mind. I am not insinuating either of these men or anyone mentioned in this story would act in this manner. I am using their names without permission but do not gain and money, or anything from this whatsoever.**

Mean Machine (Or For the love of brothers, sugar, and sanity)

Jeff Hardy _hurt_, he had just had the most _ridiculous_ match of his short career and the only thing he had to show for it was a bunch of bruises and a tweaked back.

Well, and The Undertaker's respect. He had to admit, _that_ was worth it. Jeff was limping to the vending machine down the hall from his and Matt's hotel room. Matt was out cold and Jeff had not wanted to wake Matt just because he wanted skittles.

Actually, he had tried but Matt was a log when he slept. And even though Jeff's back was a mess, he was covered in bruises, AND it was nearly 12:30am…the love of sugar could overcome nearly any pain! Jeff hadn't eaten since his match and he was desperate for food. He swore, if Matt hadn't been so excited and relieved that he'd survived, Jeff would've teased the hell outta him for not making sure they'd both eaten. Jeff thought to himself as he limped down the hall slowly, 'Matt always was the quintessential "older brother" to me, so of course I had to take care of him behind the scenes. Like not actually waking him up at midnight just to get some Skittles, even if they _are_ heavenly…I wonder if he'll stop freaking out about my "pain-level" soon? He's always known we're both insane when it comes to pain…'

Jeff laughed out loud softly to himself at the notion of he or Matt actually stopping worrying about one another. In the bizz they were in, they had to. No one else was gonna care if two insane brothers from some backwoods town killed themselves on a ladder.

"We've finally done it…they're finally noticin' us…maybe things're lookin' up," Jeff murmured to himself in his southern twang. He jingled his pocket's chains as he searched for his rumpled up dollar. "Come here you stupid thang." Jeff grumbled at the currency until it finally left his Tripp pants and he was able to start flattening it out of the corner of the machine. He finally got it flat enough for the grumpy machine to accept and commenced in trying to shove it in the coin slot because he was so tired.

"You know that it doesn't go in that hole, right?" a low baritone rumbled in his ear, making Jeff jump with fright and flatten himself on the glass of the machine, trying to whip around and tweaking his back even more.

"Shit!" He nearly screamed. He looked up as he grimaced in pain and held his lower back tensely. He was staring face-to-face with Taker. "H-Hi…Taker…"

"You're kinda spazzy ain't you kid?" The Undertaker said pointedly. Jeff tried to look irritated with the assessment for all of about five seconds before he just smirked and shrugged.

"Eh, I cain't be nothing that I'm not," Jeff returned. He once again tried the machine for his candy, this time putting the dollar in correctly. He squinted at the letters of the candy he wanted. "A5, yer as good as mine." He quickly punched in the numbers. But, alas, the machine was still angry at Jeff for assaulting it's coin slot with paper and vehemently refused to give the twenty-something year old his very needed sugar. Jeff groaned and punched the machine square in the face, only succeeding in hurting his fist. The machine whirled its metallic spinny-thing that held the candy hostage. "Stupid machine from hell!"

Taker watched all of this with composed incredulousness. Earlier that night he had simply thought of Jeff Hardy as an overzealous newcomer with a huge heart and a bigger pain-threshold. He had even raised the kid's hand after beating him. The American-Badass thought the redneck anomaly deserved that much. Now, he just thought the kid was plain odd.

"So why the hell are you in a dark hallway in the middle of the night…getting Skittles of all things?" Taker asked after watching the kid fight with the thing for more than a minute. He thumped the machine in the side with one of his large hands and it instantly relented and gave up the rainbow coloured sweets. Jeff looked at Taker like he was magical before quickly swiping his candy from the mean machine, and grimacing only a bit as his hurt back strained to bend down. He moved out of Taker's way, thinking the older, larger man wanted something from the snack machine from hell. Taker, however, simply turned to the drink machine and got a Pepsi from the cool confines.

"I haven't ate since before the match, so I'm starvin'," Jeff said simply.

"Your possessive-ass brother let you forget to eat?" Taker asked critically. Even if he hardly knew the Hardys, the rumors of the Tarheelians had spread through the Top Dog's locker room and he knew a few things about the kids. Jeff merely shrugged.

He turned to go back to his hotel room when he realized he'd forgotten something crucial. "Ah, hell."

"What? Forget your key, rainbow-sprite?" Taker chuckled. Jeff cut his eyes a bit but ripped his Skittles open and ate half the bag in one gulp.

"Ain't no biggie, I'll just sit outside and wait for the sun to come up, then I'll ask the desk people if they can give me another key," Jeff said decidedly, he plopped down right where he was and ate a singular Skittle this time.

Now, Taker didn't have any reason what-so-ever to do this, but he decided that instead of going back to his room and maybe sleeping an iota, he was going to stand and talk to the crazy, baby Hardy.

"You're just gonna sit here…in a dark hallway, in the middle of the night, hurt, hungry, and waiting for possibly seven to eight hours?" Taker asked the obvious, as the North Carolinian had apparently decided this already.

"Yep, ain't nothin' else to do. Matt won't wake for anything less than a tornado at this point," Jeff told Taker. Jeff wondered briefly why the deadman was standing here talking to him. Before tonight Jeff and Taker's only exchanges had been in extremely small amounts in passing or for bizz only, talking about some move or in Jeff's case asking about a move and getting the surprise help from The Undertaker. "Might do my back some good, to sit instead of lay down," Jeff inspected another Skittle then ate that one as well.

Taker leaned against the 'machine from hell', as Jeff had dubbed it, and looked down at the kid. He was cute enough, Taker decided, and had lots of potential. But Taker also knew that at the rate the kid's storylines seemed to be going, the kid would break himself in half by the time he was thirty. Vince had a bad habit of snapping high-flyers into multiple pieces just for pure entertainment. Of course, the kid was just glad to get recognition from Creative. He and his brother were already making a name for themselves as good tag-teamers. Though, Taker doubted that Jeff noticed all the lusty looks he got from some of the older members of the locker room, such as Triple H. Matt surely did though, because he was always so vicious when protecting his brother. Taker sighed, little brothers were notoriously naïve. He wondered it Jeff was as well.

"C'mon," Taker grumbled after a bit. Jeff looked at the deadman oddly. "Well I ain't letting you stay out here all night and get cruised by someone like Helmsly."

"Huh, Taker, you must have me confused…" Jeff started, and then stopped. He'd always felt like some of the eyes in the locker room had followed him, he honestly had thought that it was just because he was fresh meat to be fucked with, like hazing. He never thought someone like Triple H would have actively leered at him enough for the leader of the locker room to notice.

"Get your ass up and come, boy. Or I'll drag your ass," Taker growled a bit. He was trying to be generous and the kid was apparently just realizing that he was considered jail bait by half the locker room. Jeff stood stiffly and limped after Taker, not speaking. Taker had a suite all to himself, and opened the door and waited for Jeff to enter before himself.

"So, not that I don't appreciate it, but what's with the sudden charity? Before tonight you barely noticed I was alive," Jeff asked curiously as he stood awkwardly in the living area of the suite as Taker closed the door. The room was softly illuminated by two lamps that sat on opposite end of a couch.

"I don't feel like explaining to McMahon why your brother has a warrant for his arrest tomorrow morning," The Undertaker said plainly. Jeff nodded and guzzled the rest of the sugar before looking around the room for something to do. "Well sit down."

Jeff went to the couch and did so. This was quickly becoming awkward. He decided to ignore that however and try to unwrap the mystery he saw as Taker.

"Why didn't you just annihilate me t'night?" Jeff asked, "After my challenge I kinda deserved it."

Taker let out a barking laugh that made the younger jolt a bit which made the older man laugh harder. "Not many scrawny little kids would be still standing and have enough guts to try and call me out _again_ after getting their asses whooped. You went off script and it worked for you, I wanted to give you the props, however small, that you deserved for having that kinda balls," Taker explained. He had no idea why he was talking to this kid. He rarely talked to anyone sans Glenn and a few others. Lest it was to bust their chops for something. He didn't know what it was, but the younger Hardy had something about him that just made Taker talk. He should've been irritated by it, but he found he wasn't.

"Oh, ok. Thanks then…" Jeff said. He looked up at the older man and decided to push the bounds. "Hey, you got any Tylenol? My back is killin' me." Taker snorted. He did, however, go to the sink in the kitchenette of the suite and grad a bottle of Tylenol Extra Strength and chucked it at the kid. Jeff surprisingly caught it, which excited the younger as a huge smile when on his face at his small feat. He opened the bottle and downed four pills before setting it on the side table. "Thanks again."

"Yeah, you're gonna feel it worse tomorrow if you don't stretch it out now," Taker warned. Jeff nodded but did not move to stretch, he honestly did not know if he could without crying or screaming, neither of which he was willing to do in front of the most powerful man in the locker room. "Now as in, right now."

"Yeah…I can't really do that…" Jeff murmured, slightly embarrassed, he also did not know of any back stretches he could do on his own to alleviate where the pain was, other than a back bridge. And he was _not_ going to do that in front of Taker, either.

"Stand up, baby Hardy," Taker commanded. Out of pure shock Jeff did as he was told. The deadman walked behind him and locked his arms around Jeff's chest, putting the younger's arms across his chest as well. Jeff started to protect but he words were eaten by a loud groan of pain as Taker lifted him up. Taker started pressing the baby Hardy's back against his chest, hearing the vertebrae pop the pressure out.

"Aaaaaah! Sh-shit…" Jeff groaned as he was let down surprisingly gently. "If it had been just my upper back I'd fall at yer feet and bow down." Jeff sighed. He looked back up at the phenom. "Thanks, but you really don't gotta do that. I'll-I'll sort it out tomorrow…well later today. Ya' know?"

"Shut up and admit that it felt good," Taker snorted. Jeff shrugged. It _had_ felt good, but his lower back was still in knots. "Where else does it hurt?"

"Eh, uh-uh, I ain't tellin' ya'," Jeff shook his head, backing away from the taller man. He tripped over the coffee table and went sprawling to the ground. The older man reached out to grab him but missed. "Aaaaah, hell…"

Jeff earned himself another bruise.

"Damn kid, you're like a one-man self-destruction crew," Taker stated somewhat mockingly. He pulled baby Hardy up. Jeff scratched the back of his head and smiled embarrassedly. "Now, where the hell does it hurt?"

"My lower back," Jeff conceded. Taker gave a "oh, uh-huh" sorta face before grabbing Jeff around the waist and slinging him up on his shoulders in a fireman carry. Jeff started struggling to get free. "Unless you really wanna fly, stop wrigglin' up there."

"Put me dow-AAAH," Jeff screamed as he was flopped unceremoniously down onto the couch on his stomach. "What the hell?"

"Shut up and lay still," Taker commanded, making the younger fall silent. Taker honestly did not have a true answer for the kid's question, other than the fact that Taker was following Taker's every whim at the moment. And right now, Taker had the strangest desire to rub the knots out of the younger's back. And he proceeded to do so. His large fingers yanked the mesh-white shirt up the palely tanned body till it caught on his neck and shoulders effectively trapping the younger in his own shirt.

He leaned over the couch and Jeff's prone body and rubbed, roughly yet effectively, the knots out of the younger's back. Try as he might, Jeff could not form a coherent sentence or make a move to free himself from this odd and slightly embarrassing situation.

Soon enough the baby Hardy was half asleep and Taker was smirking at some self recognized thing.

Though that night could've easily turned into something more. Taker left the exhausted younger wrestler on his couch. The rumors would come in the morning, but he had learned some stuff about baby Hardy, and what he learned he liked. Jeff would figure it out eventually, and if he didn't, well then The Undertaker would be the _helpful_ person he was and show him the way.

He still couldn't believe this all started because of a late night excursion for Pepsi and a twenty-something year old attacking a "mean machine".


End file.
